- Mr. Swales says big logs taken out of pond are often split with dynamite for the band-saw. He says there is not much waste, the hole being bored very deep and the experience of the men helping to prevent waste. The mill-pond is simply a convenient means of storing and handling a lot of logs.- The shingle mill is an interesting -- nay a fascinating spot. Logs which are below grade for the mill are used. One is placed on a car, which is moved in front of an ordinary but large cross-cut saw which is worked by a wheel (steam-driven) in a such a way that a block the length of the shingle-to-be is quite rapidly taken off. As soon

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Melburne, June 28, 1903.

as the block comes off it is laid flat and the two men who attend the log seize axes and chop off the rim of white sap. It is remarkable how quickly they take off the sap and how little waste of heart-wood there is. Then they split the block into fragments, some of which are wedge-shaped but they do not split from circumference to heart into regular wedges as one might think. The men are guided by medullary ray or more by annual-ring checks since the latter are more frequent. Then a block is put into a clamped iron frame (the cut ends abutting against the clamp) and the point of the wedge projecting a bit so(cont. at midde next p.]